0 Items

Earning the respect of your team is important but it needs to be used wisely

Martin* was skillfully leading his team through a really rough meeting. Their mission-critical project was behind schedule. The investors were getting nervous. Martin was getting nervous. And of course that made the team nervous. Martin obviously had the respect of his team. In fact he was revered. And yet I could see hat things were going horribly wrong.

What was happening? Isn’t respect in the leader a good thing?

Yes. But.

And the but is a big one. Think about the person you respect the most. Now picture that person asking you a favour. A big favour. What would be your response? Naturally, you would do everything in your power to make it happen.

I see the same thing happening in management team meetings all the time. When that respected leader asks that something be done, the team members will do their best to make it happen. Where does reality fit into this? If one of the team members knows in their heart that his or her deliverable is highly unlikely, will they speak up? Probably not… they will be assuring themselves that they can find a way. If most or even all of the team members feel this way, what is he likelihood of success? Almost nil!

Think of the Target expansion into Canada. This was one of the most spectacular failures in modern business. The common thread to the many investigations into what happened is that executives over-reached. They tried to do too much too fast to capitalize on the facilities they had taken over. Did the accountable executives fail to raise a red flag because they didn’t like their executives? I doubt it! This was a successful company who put their best people on the job. From everything I have read about the sequence of events, caution flags were not raised. People tried to do what was asked of them, even though in many cases it was an impossible task. In spite of heroic efforts and many all-nighters, the launch went ahead. The negative customer reaction is well documented, and it was severe enough that target never recovered, and eventually withdrew from the Canadian market. Could there have been a different outcome had honest feedback been given to the senior executives? We’ll never know but I would like to think so.

Back to Martin’s team: I was in the room to lead a session on strategy execution, so I had the perfect opportunity. Using the The Effective Point of Accountability® framework, I gave them some language for discussing cross functional accountability and authorities.  Bringing this back to real world, I asked them each to write down, no holds barred, the three biggest hurdles they saw, from their perspective, to successfully meeting their deadline. I then went around the table a few times until they were all flip charted,. and taped these all to the wall. I then asked everyone to walk around a check the top 2 issues that could get in the way of success. It was amazing to see the convergence on two very real issues which could delay project completion. Using the EPA language, Martin then led a discussion – who was accountable? What services did that person require for success? Who would coordinate getting that work done? Who would monitor that everything was on track, and would be accountable to escalate if there was an issue that couldn’t be resolved. And so on. While Martin was a bit shaken when he saw what was going up on the wall, he immediately realized the power of the discussion.

The Team Dynamic

The dynamic of the conversation changed from individuals feeling they alone had to bear the burden to make something happen, no matter how long the odds, to a team collaboration on overcoming mutual obstacles. After all, the whole team wants success, and everyone is happy to pitch in where needed. But they need to trust in their leader to give honest feedback, and they need to trust in the team to ensure that they all collaborate effectively.

Yes, respect is a good thing! But as managers we need to be sure not to misuse that respect. It is easier as a manager to keep adding priorities without thinking about the consequences given the existing workloads. We need to establish a sufficiently trusting relationship with our team that they can safely flag when they see an issue. If our attitude is “they’ll figure out a way to get it done”, even when we know deep down that what we are asking is impossible, we are betraying their trust in us as a leader. We leave them in the situation of having to decide what not to do, and risk the consequences, or to try and do everything but at a lower level of quality. Not fair.

Work hard to build that respect. It is important. But don’t mis-use it. Ensure that with the respect you are also building a high level of trust that you value their input and feedback. And if they see an issue with the achievement of that initiative? They need to feel that you will respect their decision to give you the hard feedback that it won’t happen unless something changes.

Martin and his team? The project was delayed, but the decision was made by Martin based on solid feedback from his team. The new completion date was successfully met because they had a plan with the buy-in of 100% of the team.

=======================================

*Real-world examples are important, but so is confidentiality of client information. Names and circumstances are always disguised to assure confidentiality.
 
Check out our YouTube Channel for free VidCasts and Recorded Webinars. Don’t forget to subscribe!